Alan Belcher: 'I'm Not Even Really Thinking About Fighting Right Now'

By Ray Hui - Editor

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UFC middleweight Alan Belcher says his mixed martial arts career isn't on his mind right now as his main focus currently is to recover from a detached retina in his right eye.

In an interview Monday with Purefight, the 26-year-old out of Biloxi, Miss. says the worst case would be the end of his competitive career while the best case scenario would still mean additional surgery.

The timing of Belcher's injury is especially unfortunate considering his recent ascent in the middleweight division. Belcher has won four of his last five UFC fights with the one loss a close decision to Yoshihiro Akiyama. Additionally, he received either Submission of the Night or Fight of the Night in each of his last four fights.

"Worst case is I don't get any better than this and I'm only working with one eye and then I probably don't want to risk fighting again with only one eye, cause if I lose that one, then I'm going to be blind," Belcher said via Skype (video of the interview with Purefight is below). "So it's just -- I'm not even really thinking about fighting right now. I'm just going to wait a couple months and see where I'm at. It's disappointing cause I was on a roll and getting close to a title [shot]."

Belcher was scheduled to headline UFC Fight Night 22 against Demian Maia on Sept. 15 and a win over the former No. 1 contender would have conceivably put Belcher in the middleweight title mix. Belcher pulled out of the fight the first of August.

Belcher lost his vision in his right eye all of a sudden while training in Brazil and and returned to the U.S. soon after for emergency surgery. A detached retina occurs when the inner layer of the retina, a thin membrane of nerve tissue, separates from the wall of the eye and according to Belcher, the detached retina might have been from tears in his retina from "getting hit in the head probably in training" and the pressure on the airplane might have worsened his condition.

"[The doctor] says definitely it's not going to get better to the same, but at best, it's going to be something like 20/40, 20/60 vision," Belcher said. "And we could maybe do some more surgeries, laser, on the retina to flatten it out to get rid of the distortedness. Maybe some on my lens to get lasiks cause I'm like going to be really nearsighted where I can't see anything far away and when it gets close I can almost see it. There's probably going to be more surgeries, probably, even in the best case scenario."

Read More: news, Alan Belcher (MMA), Demian Maia (MMA)

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